TOMS CEO Blake Mycoskie on Getting Into the Coffee Business

Yesterday the founder and CEO of TOMS—the company that sells the ubiquitous canvas shoes—announced he's expanding his reach with coffee. Blake Mycoskie explained to a crowd at South by Southwest that TOMS will be entering the coffee game as a means of expanding their reach for giving. The company, famous for its "one for one" business model where they donate a pair of shoes or glasses to someone in need each time one is sold, will now do the same with coffee for countries that produce beans—Guatemala, Malawi, Peru, Rwanda and Honduras—except they will be donating one of the most valuable resources on the planet: clean water. For every bag of TOMS beans sold, someone will get clean water for a week; for each cup, clean water for a day. "Coffee for you, water for all," says the TOMS coffee tagline.

Before he made the announcement yesterday, we caught up with the CEO to talk TOMS cafes, passion projects, and of course, his favorite TOMS brew:

Can you tell us a bit about the project and how it came about?

It's funny, for several people I've spoken to they've been really surprised to see that TOMS went from shoes to eyewear to coffee. They expected to be apparel or handbags next. The reason we got into the coffee business, or the reason we're getting into it is really one of the big focuses of mine personally over the last couple of years is I'm using our business model to create more economic development. And in the past year we're making shoes in Kenya, and we just opened a factory actually in Haiti and right now we're the only footwear manufacturer in Haiti. And so this is all part of us trying to create jobs and stimulate the economy in the places that we are giving.

One area that is really great for economic development is when you're working with coffee farmers and specifically trading directly with them. That way you can serve very high-quality, single-origin coffee, but at the same time you can make sure that the farmers are getting the best prices for their beans, which creates a better life for them and their families. You can also help work with them, which is what we do, in teaching agricultural skills so they'll get a higher yield on their crops.

So it really was economic development that led me to kind of learn more about coffee and then it became a TOMS product because I recognized when I was with the farmers that the number one ingredient that you will use in making coffee, in terms of preparing it after they take it off the trees is actually water. Coffee is actually classified in its quality by how much water is used to wash the beans when they come off the trees. They have partial washed, super premium fully washed, and so, in place of like Rwanda where I visited, you see these farms using a tremendous amount of water to wash the beans, which preserves the quality and taste, and then they get a higher price for the beans. But, in time, the irony of it is that the communities surrounding these plantations don't have safe drinking water for themselves— for their family, for bathing, cooking and drinking.

And so that's when I came up with the idea that we could have a TOMS one-for-one coffee and the one-for-one model would be, we would sell coffee and give back water, so we're working with different nonprofits to build safe, sustainable water systems in these countries that we are sourcing the country from. If you're drinking our Guatemalan, single-origin coffee at either our cafes or through our bags of beans, you know that we're also donating money back to the water projects in Guatemala.

So how did the idea for an actual café come about?

We've always had a great business with Whole Foods for our shoes, so we did a deal with them to sell our coffee nationally, and also we're creating this very special roasting club at TOMS.com where people can go and talk about…give us their profiles or favorite types of coffees, and then we will send them specialty coffee for them each month with information about the farmers that we harvested it from, as well as other projects that we're funding through their purchase.

So we knew that we could reach customers through TOMS.com club and Whole Foods, but we really wanted to create more of what I would call "community experiences" in the cities that we have built our business in. Over the past 10 or 15 years coffee shops have become kind of commercialized, very sterile, and their really aren't places outside of your work and your home to go and really have a nice kind of coffee experience, with more of a community feel. I'm kind of going back to the roots of the coffee shop. So if you go into our cafés, which our first two are in Austin and Los Angeles, we're going to be launching one in New York in about two months, you're kind of immersed in the TOMS giving trip experience.

What is the price point for the coffee?

In those cafes, it's pretty much your standard price for a cappuccino, latte, etc. For the bags it's 12.99, and that's for our single-origin kind of premium whole bean.

Does it taste good?

It's amazing. And I didn't know anything about coffee when I started but we hired this master roaster named Angel Orozco who's been rated one of the top roasters on the West Coast for several years now.

Do you have a favorite?

My favorite is the Rwandan, that lighter roast— it's so smooth, I love it. And I also have a specific affiliation to it because I spent time in Rwanda, actually have spent time with all the farmers that we're working with, and can picture their faces, and have heard about their kids. It brings back very good memories.

This project feels very personal for you:

I started TOMS seven years ago and about two years ago I was a little burnt out, and I took some time off, and actually moved to Austin. And really wasn't involved too much in the day-to-day of TOMS. It really was this project that kind of reignited the passion for what we're doing. Not that I lost it for our shoes, but you know, the business got bigger, and there's all these people now, and they have all these specific jobs, and they do their jobs much better than I would do. And so having a totally new project that's in a totally new industry working very entrepreneurial and a whole new learning kind of reignited my passion for using our one-for-one model beyond just the fashion lifestyle category. So now that we're entering food and beverage with coffee, I feel like there's so many opportunities for us in the future, whether it's tea or wines or chocolates, there's so many ways to source these products directly with the people who are making them, and improving their lives than giving water back as a result, because as we all know the need for safe, clean water is very big in these countries.